


OC Compilation - Rylie

by GreyscaleCourtier



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Avengers, Drabble Collection, Mild Language, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Original Character(s), Past Child Abuse, Team as Family, au where IW never happened so thor valkyrie and loki just show up and hang out sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyscaleCourtier/pseuds/GreyscaleCourtier
Summary: a bunch of short drabbles of my friend Robin's Avengers OC, Rylie. she's my goddaughter and i write a lot of stuff for her so it's all going here on ao3 in case my stuff gets deleted off tumblr for whatever reason ^_^





	1. First Name: Agent

Appa lifts his enormous shaggy head to look at the door. He barks twice and lays back down.

Rylie scratches behind his ears absently, listening hard, staring unseeing at the carpet of her bedroom. Tony’s been on the phone for nine minutes. He’s been shouting for seven of those minutes. The walls are nearly soundproof, but Rylie’s found that if she sits in this corner with the door 38 degrees open, the hallway has an acoustic bounce effect on noises from the living room, and she’s almost got a handle on the words.

She thinks she heard “evaluate” earlier. She also thinks she heard a number of words that she’s been told she shouldn’t repeat. She’s pretty sure she heard Tony say “national security” like someone would say “yeast infection.” She definitely heard something heavy fall over.

Appa doesn’t seem worried, so Rylie judges the situation safe for now. Tony just breaks things sometimes, Clint said to her once. Bruce had overheard and said something like “Ultron,” but Rylie didn’t want to go down that road just yet. Not when she still wasn’t too secure here in the tower.

She scoots a half inch to the left. Appa heaves a sigh and follows her to put his head back in her lap. The sound finally comes clearer, like fine-tuning a radio.

“… even care what Fury said,” Tony’s spitting, and Rylie’s never heard him drop all his humor and snark and just sound mad like this. “You tell Fury to call me, and I’ll tell him where he can stick his evaluation. The kid stays here. …Fine. Fine. Call S.H.I.E.L.D. Call Homeland Security, too. Call the damn Navy for all I care. But I’ll warn you one time, Councilwoman, you don’t want to try this by force. Not with the people in this house.”

That… was a lot to unpack. Rylie’s suspected that she posed a legal tough spot for everybody for a while now, but anytime she voiced her concerns she was dismissed with a “Don’t worry about that.” Now she’s not so sure.

Appa looks up at her uncertainly. Rylie realizes she’s clenching her fists and forces them open.

Tony’s hung up, apparently having gotten the last word, but Rylie can feel the faint rhythm of pacing footsteps in the floor beneath her and can imagine Stark running his hands through his hair, toying with a situation in his head like he would toy with a new molecule.

Appa’s head swivels back to the door and Rylie hears someone else coming down the hall, quieter footfalls than Tony’s, and Bucky Barnes knocks at her 38 degrees open door. Appa’s tail slowly starts to thump against the wall.

“Got a minute?” Bucky asks. His face is the carefully neutral of a trained assassin, but the lines around his eyes look deeper than usual.

Rylie doesn’t answer, but she gets up. Appa comes with her.

-

Steve Rogers rubs his eyes. He looks tired. He always looks at least a little tired, but this is a different kind of tired. Like he’s just come back from a mission that didn’t end well.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to talk to you,” he starts, choosing his words carefully. That ramps up Rylie’s anxiety more than if he’d been blunt about it. “They said they’ll be sending an agent for what they call an evaluation.”

Evaluation is never a good word. Rylie nods.

Steve seems to relax a little. “It’s not a big deal,” he goes on, even though Rylie’s sure he’s trying to convince himself of it. “They’re just going to ask you some questions. Won’t take more than an hour or so.”

Rylie knows he has no way of knowing that. The fact that he’s trying to put her at ease is making her palms sweat. “What kind of questions?”

Steve shoots a quick glance at Bucky, sitting on the far side of the room, not even pretending not to eavesdrop. “About the Center,” Steve continues. “About your time there, what your instructions were. A lot of people have been trying to take them down for a long time, and your intel is going to help them dismantle the whole operation.”

Rylie can tell it’s not the whole story. “Okay. When?”

Bucky answers before Steve can. “They said they were sending someone over tonight. We’re all going to be here just in case.” To Steve, he rolls his eyes. “Your beating around the bush is making her more nervous.”

Tonight. Okay. She can work with that. “What else do they want from me?” she asks Bucky. She likes Steve, she does, but Bucky knows her like Natasha does. Like Clint does.

Bucky shrugs, lopsidedly. He’s still not used to the new Wakandan arm, Rylie can tell by the way he compensates for weight that isn’t there anymore. “You used to work for a hostile group,” he says. “They want to make sure you weren’t brainwashed to be a sleeper cell. If they decide you are, they’ll take you somewhere. But that won’t happen.”

Thinking of being taken from here makes Rylie’s blood run a little cold. “Why not?”

“Well, are you a sleeper agent?” Bucky asks, blunt as a spoon.

“No.”

“Then they won’t need to take you anywhere. And even if they tried, you think we’d let them?”

Rylie shakes her head.

“Exactly. It’s gonna be fine.”

She hopes he’s right.

-

The man they send is someone she’s never met, but she can’t say the same for anyone else. She can hear at least two sharp gasps when he steps out of the elevator. He’s unassuming, receding hairline, wearing a suit and tie, a folder stamped CLASSIFIED under his arm. That’s all Rylie can deduce before everyone starts talking over each other.

“Phil?”

“Coulson –”

“– saw you die –”

“– doing here?”

“–oes Fury know about –”

The man stands and smiles a little ruefully until the talking pauses. “Hi. Yeah. Fury knows. Don’t worry about it. I’m here for the evaluation.” He finally catches Rylie’s eye and smiles less ruefully. “I’m Agent Coulson. Can we talk?”

Rylie nods, more than a little caught off guard by the group’s reaction. Tony isn’t even trying to hide it, looking wildly between Agent Coulson and everyone else. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?” he says a bit hysterically. “Phil? Phil Coulson, Agent Phil Coulson, is standing in my house looking super not dead anymore and he just… FRIDAY?”

“Agent Coulson is not dead,” FRIDAY confirms from the ceiling.

“Where’ve you been?” Clint Barton demands, though there’s not much heat to it. He sounds surprised, sure, but there’s a bone-deep relief he’s trying to hide. Rylie relaxes a little more. If Clint knows this guy, she’ll trust his judgment.

“Tahiti.” Coulson’s smile goes tight. “It’s a magical place. Now can we please start this? I have places to be.” He motions for Rylie. “And… can we have some privacy, please? I do have to do this with no one else in the room.”

Rylie looks back over her shoulder. Tony’s got the thrusters from his suit on, and he’s trying very hard to hide them behind his back. Natasha sits sideways in an armchair, cleaning her gun like she does it every day (which she does). Barton’s slipped one of his half-dozen knives back in his belt. Bruce still has his arms crossed, a vein on his forehead standing out. He’s not convinced that’s really Phil Coulson. Whoever that is.

Vision rises up through the floor, cape flowing. “If you require privacy,” he says while Coulson starts violently, nearly dropping the file.

“Hell, I wasn’t ready for that,” he manages, interrupting Vision. “But yes, we do. Romanov, put that away.”

“Weapons need to be cleaned,” Nat says, closing one eye to inspect the magazine. “In case I  _need them.”_

“Stop being threatening and point me to a room you won’t eavesdrop in.”

“Oh, we’re gonna eavesdrop.” Tony folds his arms like Bruce, then remembers the thrusters and hurriedly puts his hands behind his back again. “Doesn’t matter what you or Fury say.”

Coulson sighs. He looks every bit a weary, put-upon businessman. If Rylie didn’t see a telltale lump where a handgun hangs by his pocket, concealed by the well-tailored suit, she might write him off as nonthreatening. But she follows him to the kitchen, giving Nat what she hopes is a reassuring look. Barton nods at her over Natasha’s shoulder and gives her a quick sign, so fast she’s sure no one else catches it. _Safe_ , his hands say.

She sits at the table and watches Agent Coulson flip through his file, sitting at the other end. “You got a last name, Rylie?” he asks pleasantly.

She shrugs. As much as Barton seems to trust the guy, she’s apprehensive. The situation feels a bit like her old evaluations at the Center, waiting to be judged and told where all her flaws are.

“Mmm.” Coulson’s pen scratches on the paper. Rylie doesn’t remember a lot of her Intelligence Recon lessons, but she thinks he just wrote “none” by her name. “Do you remember how old you were when you were approached by the Center?”

Rylie fidgets. “Young,” she says vaguely. She doesn’t remember much of her life before the Center. Cold winters and hot summers and clothes that never fit right and too many missed dinners. “They didn’t approach me. I would stay there after school. Then one day no one came to pick me up. The Counselors took me downstairs.”

More scratching. “And what happened downstairs?”

Rylie shrugs again. “I didn’t leave. Not until Clint found me down there.”

“That was years later.”

Rylie nods. Agent Coulson’s mouth hardens into a thin line, but he keeps writing. Moments tick past.

He puts the pen down again. “Did any of the Counselors tell you what your purpose was?”

Rylie looks down at the table, trying to organize her thoughts. The Counselors told her a million things and expected her to remember them all. “We had combat training,” she recalls. “More often than other training. Some kids were trained in diplomacy, but not me. Sometimes they’d disappear. They came back a few times but mostly we didn’t see those kids again.” She pauses again, takes a deep breath. “They didn’t tell us our purposes. Just what to do.”

“What did they tell you to do?” The pen is in his hand again.

“Reconnaissance, I think. That’s what they were training me for. Gathering intel and scouting locations. Threat assessments and things like that. Stealth. Combat too.”

Coulson writes for a long time and Rylie wishes she hadn’t mentioned some of that. What if he decides she’s a threat now? What if he tries to take her from the tower?

Coulson sets the pen down and shuts the folder. “Okay. Just a few more questions and we’ll be done.” He smiles at her and the lines around his eyes crinkle. “Did anyone at the Center ever mention S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Sometimes. They didn’t talk about those kinds of things around us. But I was a stealth operative.” She risks a quick little smile. “I would hear things.”

Coulson’s smile broadens. “Oh, that’s good. Using their own training against them, that’s smart. What did you hear?”

“I thought it was a rival agency or something. I didn’t think it was part of the government. Before I left, I heard them saying things about the Center in Dubai. That S.H.I.E.L.D. was getting too close.”

Coulson holds up a finger and pulls out a cell phone, taps out a rapid text. From what Rylie can tell, he’d said “We were right about Dubai, Center operational.” Then he sets the phone facedown on the table and turns his attention back to her. “Sorry about that. Just a few more questions. You’re doing just fine.”

“How do you know Clint?” comes out before Rylie can stop it.

Coulson looks a bit taken aback, but then the warm smile spreads back over his face. “I used to be his handler. We worked together for a long time. I remember when he met Romanov. And Thor, for that matter. Get him to tell you that story sometime, he loves telling it.”

Rylie offers back a shy smile. It feels weird on her face.

“Did you get the names of any of the Counselors while you were there? Any of the higher level personnel?”

Rylie has to think about that. “Mostly we were just supposed to call them by one name. Miss Preston, Mister Chandler, and Miss Beatrice were in charge of the Stealth operatives. They were our handlers. But there were more there. None of them had nametags, and if we didn’t know their names we weren’t supposed to talk to them. But,” she adds quickly, seeing Coulson’s face tense with disappointment, “I know they all made at least one trip to Ontario every year to report to the higher-ups. They called it a Sabbatical. I don’t know where or who they went to, though.”

“Ontario.” Coulson jots it down. “That narrows our search down. By a lot.” He flips the folder closed. “I think that’s all we need to know for now, Rylie. Thanks for the talk.”

Rylie’s guard doesn’t go down. “What next?”

Coulson gets up, tucks the folder under his arm, and opens the kitchen door. Peter falls through. “Ow,” he says from the floor.

“We weren’t eavesdropping,” says Vision, hovering just outside the door. “We were just… loitering with functional hearing.”

Coulson rolls his eyes. “We’ll be in touch,” he says to the rest of the team, clustered behind Vision and trying to look casual about it. “I trust that my visit will stay confidential. Not many people know I’m back in the field.”

Tony waves halfheartedly. “Yeah, we’re great at keeping things quiet. Take care of yourself, Agent.”

“Coulson.” Clint Barton leans too casually against the wall by the elevator. “You’re forgetting something.”

“Am I?”

Rylie might be mistaken, but the edge of a smile plays on his face.

“The evaluation. Where do we stand?”

Phil Coulson presses the elevator button. “Oh, that.”

The elevator dings and slides open.

“Yeah, I signed off on that on the drive over here. Did you really think I’d take the kid?”

Relief washes over Rylie. Coulson hadn’t ever intended to take her.

“Evening,” he says and the elevator shuts.

The silence is comfortable and relieved. Then Natasha says, “I should call T'Challa. I asked if he’d smuggle Rylie out to Wakanda in case S.H.I.E.L.D. tried anything and I think he might have sent an armada.”

Clint snickers and Rylie can’t help but giggle too.

She belongs here, and for the first time she really feels like it.


	2. The Devil You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one about the defenders!! except danny rand cause i can't stand danny rand

“Target moving at Sam’s six o clock.” Rylie taps the vending machine without really looking at the contents. A flicker of motion goes from one rooftop to the next.

“Roger,” Sam says over the comms. “On his tail.”

“What now?” Steve says from somewhere, exasperated.

“No, I… not Rogers. Roger. Like, I hear you, but in military talk.”

“We need to clear that up.”

“Right now you need to clear up these comm lines,” Tony scolds. “Rylie, still got eyes on the target?”

Rylie pretends to consider the vending machine. Someone catches her eye in the reflection. She stiffens and takes in the details.

African-American male. Dark hooded jacket. Plain jeans. Light facial hair. Six foot three, two hundred some-odd pounds; it’s too dark for her to get a better look. He leans against the outside of a hair salon, and wouldn’t be suspicious at all if Rylie hadn’t seen his eyes flick away from her when she glanced over her shoulder for a better look.

“Rylie, eyes on target or not?”

She blinks and returns her attention to the vending machine. “Took a turn down an alley, Sam following. Want me to tag along?”

“No. Hang tight in case he gets away from Sam. You’ll be our backup.”

“Cool.” Rylie turns her attention back to the buzzing lights of the vending machine, blankly staring down the rows of likely-expired snacks while she listens in over the comms.

“He’s passing by the courthouse,” Sam reports. “My cloaking is about to wear off. Peter, he’ll be on your left soon.”

“Gotcha. Just stay on him?”

“Stay on him but do not engage,” Steve says. “We want to know where he’s going. If he thinks he’s being followed, this won’t end well.”

Something moves in the vending machine glass.

Rylie spins. The man in the hooded jacket is sprinting at her.

“Get down!” he roars.

Years of conditioning have Rylie dropping to the asphalt as the building above her explodes in a shower of glass and cement.

The man all but tackles her as the debris rains down. The explosion left Rylie’s ears ringing, but she can hear frantic squabbling from the comm line. It’s gone from her ear, lost in the smoke and dust.

Something creaks and breaks somewhere overhead, and the man swears and pushes Rylie further down against the ground. Broken glass scratches her cheek. Everything smells like dust and metal and danger.

A sharp metal clang draws her attention. She can’t see much, pinned to the ground, but she sees another piece of rebar fall six inches point-first into the concrete by her head like a hot knife into butter.

She jerks away from it, dust in her eyes and her nose and something hot dripping from her cheek.

“DON’T MOVE,” the man roars in her ear.

Something cracks, falls, and the world goes dark in an explosion of dust and pain and a deafening crash.

~

“Luke Cage,” he says when they ask, later. “I was trailing the same guy you were.”

“You were trailing Rylie,” Clint Barton corrects.

Luke Cage shrugs. He’s covered in concrete dust and bits of broken glass. The hooded jacket hangs off his enormous frame in shreds. “Saw the Avengers getting involved. Didn’t want to step on any toes.”

Natasha Romanov says nothing, but scrubs an invisible speck of rust on an already-flawlessly polished knife. She doesn’t break eye contact with Luke.

“Bigger problem,” Tony says. “We lost the target.”

“What do you mean, you lost the target?” Rylie bursts out. She’s been sitting at the kitchen table, letting Bruce Banner scrub street dirt out of the gash on her cheek.

“Uh?” Tony turns on her. “In the ‘Avengers Priority Checklist,’ an explosion one of our team was in ranks way higher than following a mobster’s errand boy.”

“But now we have to start over!”

“He clearly knew he was being followed,” Steve puts in. “The explosion was a distraction. Had to be. They know we’re onto them.”

Tony rounds back on Luke Cage. “Which begs the question, why were you following a mobster’s errand boy?”

Luke Cage doesn’t even bat an eye. He has a full head and shoulders on Tony, but Rylie doesn’t think that’s why he isn’t intimidated. Under the shredded jacket, Luke Cage’s skin is dusty, black, and completely, one hundred percent intact.

“He’s working for the Syndicate. They’ve been recruiting kids out of Harlem to do their shakedowns and dirty work. I don’t approve.” He glances at Rylie. “I don’t approve of anyone who gets kids to do their dirty work.”

“Okay, well first of all, that’s admirable, but second of all, we are the professionals.”

“The Avengers don’t care about Harlem. Nobody does. It’s just got me.”

There’s something dark and unpleasant in Luke Cage’s voice.

Steve tries to intervene. “We can’t handle every crisis in the world, but we take information seriously and SHIELD could have done–”

“SHIELD didn’t do a thing when Cottonmouth and Diamondback were running rampant, making deals with The Hand, and killing teenagers off the streets.” Luke Cage’s voice is hard and curt. “Wanna take a wild guess who had to clean that up? It sure wasn’t the Avengers. Sure wasn’t SHIELD.”

Natasha finally speaks up, effortlessly spinning her knife back into a holster Rylie can’t even see. “I used to know someone who said something quite similar.”

Luke Cage says nothing.

“By any chance,” Nat says slowly, “do you know Jessica Jones?”

The cold, hard edges of Luke’s face ease. “You know her?”

“I’ve hired her before. She does good investigative work. Also once I saw her throw a car at a guy, that was awesome.”

Luke’s mouth quirks up at the corners. “That’s the one.”

Tony half-turns to his right. Rylie knows that means he’s getting something from FRIDAY. She doesn’t know if anyone else has picked up on that.

“Right,” Tony says suddenly and far too loud. “So, thanks for saving Fun-Size here, but we have a mobster’s career to ruin. Need anything? New hoodie, a ride?”

“I’m used to this happening,” Luke says. “I’ll be fine. I got cab fare. Just show me the back exit.”

Clint gets up and motions for Luke to follow him. “I’ll show you out. Call us if you find anything else on the Syndicate.”

“I’ll keep an ear to the ground,” Luke Cage says as the door closes behind him, and to Rylie it sounds like he means it.

~

“So what did FRIDAY have?” Rylie asks as soon as the elevator out in the hall closes. She can’t hear it, but the floor hums under her feet whenever the elevator is in use.

Tony blinks and turns his back on her, pretending to head for the refrigerator. “That’s unsettling. I told you to stop reading my mind.”

“I’m not a telepath. I’m just observant.”

Tony heaves a sigh. “FRIDAY has nothing on Luke Cage, but facial recognition ID'ed him as Carl Lucas. Spent some years in prison for what turned out to be framed drug possession. Supposedly he died in a prison fire.”

Natasha puts her boots up on the table and pulls a phone out of nowhere. “I’ll see what I can dig up on him.”

Bruce slaps her shoes. “No need. And get those off the table. We eat here.”

“He’s clearly one of us,” Rylie puts in.

That pulls everyone up short, except for Natasha, who just smirks and keeps texting.

“One of… who, exactly?” Tony asks.

“Well, you’re not. But, what’s the term they’re using?” Rylie asks Nat.

“Enhanced persons.”

“Right. Didn’t you see his clothes?”

“Clothes?” Tony sounds completely lost. “Look, if clothes made a person a superhero, then I’d be top of the list.”

Rylie sighs and absently rubs the cut on her cheek. She reins her thoughts in, sifting through them slowly until they would make sense. “A building fell on us,” she tries. “Like, the whole building. He didn’t have a scratch.”

“So… what, super speed or something?”

Natasha says it at the same time Rylie does. “He’s bulletproof.”

~

Natasha’s contact is a sullen-looking woman with black hair who looks extraordinarily put out when she has to wait for the elevator.

“Sir,” FRIDAY says. “Someone has arrived. I asked her for identification and she made a very rude gesture at the security tapes, and came in anyway.”

“That’s Jessica,” Nat says, appearing out of nowhere. “Let her in.”

“Uh, you don’t live here,” Tony says from the kitchen. “When you pay the bills, you decide who comes in.”

“Too late,” says the sullen woman as soon as the elevator dings and slides open. She has a file folder in one hand. “Got the info you asked for.”

“Thanks,” says Natasha.

Jessica Jones hands over the file and inspects the room. Her eyes roll right over Tony Stark and pause on Rylie. “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”

“Tried it.” Rylie shrugs. “Didn’t work out.”

Jessica snorts unattractively. “Luke was right. You do have kids doing your dirty work now.”

Nat says nothing, flipping through the file. “This is everything you have on the Syndicate’s headquarters?”

“Couldn’t get a handle on HQ, but they have a warehousing complex in the city. Can’t say about everywhere else in the world. Or their outposts. Or their numbers.”

“So what exactly _did_ you bring?” Tony asks sarcastically, sipping his coffee.

Jessica Jones ignores him. It clearly drives Tony nuts. Rylie likes her immediately. “The blueprints I got straight from the contractors that built the warehouses, so it’ll include every secret passage and underground surprise they have.”

“These contractors still alive?”

Jessica Jones shrugs like she’s a pro at it. “Everybody has dirt. They talked in the end.”

“'Everybody has dirt.’ Put that on your business cards.” Nat slaps the folder shut and passes it to Tony.

“Already did. Call me if you need whatever.” Jessica Jones flicks a business card at Rylie, who catches it without thinking.

Rylie examines the business card. _Alias Investigations. Everybody has dirt._ A phone number, an apartment number. “Is she a telepath or something?”

“Nope,” Nat says. “She’s just nosy and stubborn and intimidating. Everything she needs to be a great private investigator. Speaking of which,” she addresses Tony, “when are we going after the Syndicate?”

Tony is paging through the folder with a frown. “If this is all accurate–”

“It is.”

“–then we’re gonna need a plan. There’s a lot of ground to cover and we don’t know how many goons will be there.”

“Do some recon. Not my problem.” Jessica Jones turns to Natasha. “Your email?”

“Sent it when FRIDAY said you were here.”

“Thanks.” Jessica Jones leaves with little fanfare.

Tony taps at the paper like its a screen he can change. “This is gonna be hard.”

Peter wanders in with a Popsicle. “What’s hard?”

“Suit up, Parker. You too, Rylie.”

Rylie holds her hand out as Peter hands her an extra Popsicle. “I don’t have a suit.”

“Good. You’re going undercover. Find out what’s in those warehouses.” Tony flips the folder shut.

~

Rylie pulls her coat sleeves up for the fifteenth time. Peter smacks her hands. “Stop doing that, someone’s going to see the wire.”

“Listen to Spiderboy,” says Sam Wilson in her earpiece. “You’re undercover. Stop looking nervous.”

She’s not nervous. “I’m not nervous. This is just how my face looks.”

“Shhhh.”

“I’ve got eyes on you two, keep moving.” Natasha’s voice sounds tinny from the earpiece, but when Rylie spots her across the street doing a wonderful job of looking like a bored pedestrian, Nat flicks her fingers in a little wave. Rylie waves back.

They make their way around the fence. Inside is a series of eerily silent warehouses. Rylie hasn’t seen a gate yet, and she’s about to suggest just climbing the chain link fence when Sam pipes up in the earpiece. “Hey, sonic scans show nobody inside. Be careful.”

“If nobody’s inside, that’s… a good thing, right?” Peter says.

Rylie shakes her head wordlessly and snatches Peter’s wrist in hers. “Whatever happens, remember our cover. Teens looking for a quiet place to make out.”

“Right.” Peter looks at her hand on his wrist. “What are you doing.”

“Holding your hand? That’s what teen couples do, right?”

“Not… not like that. Like this.” He laces his fingers clumsily with hers.

“For crying out loud,” groans Sam. “These kids don’t even know how to hold hands. This mission’s a–”

“Door,” Rylie interrupts, pointing. A rusted door in the side of the warehouse hangs just a little off its hinges. It isn’t closed, just propped open.

“It looks locked,” Peter says uncertainly, but Rylie drops his hand and starts climbing the fence.

“She’s climbing the fence,” Peter says.

Sam and Steve sigh in unison.

Natasha, nondescript by her motorcycle across the street, flashes a quick thumbs-up.

Peter heaves a sigh of his own and starts after her.

The door falls inward at the slightest touch. Rylie takes a moment before going inside.

Stale air. Thin layer of dust on the floor, no footprints. The warehouse hasn’t been entered in a while. Not even by Syndicate employees. Crates that look heavy but might be empty; she’s not sure. Doesn’t matter. It’s not the objective.

Peter follows her inside. “No people,” he says.

“Stay on your guard,” comes Steve’s voice from the earpiece.

“It’s just stacks of crates,” Rylie says. “Can’t tell what’s inside. Want us to get into one?”

“Negative,” says Natasha. “Get a good look around first. Observe everything.”

Observe everything. Rylie knows where Natasha learned that.

Flickering in the corner of her eye makes her look, but it’s just a piece of tarp tacked halfway over a narrow window blowing in the breeze. “Someone came through,” she says to Peter.

“What?”

She points at the window but she’s already back to scanning the room. There are more crates, but they seem scattered rather than organized. Abandoned? No - knocked down and hurriedly put to rights. There’s no dust on this part of the floor.

It clicks into place while Peter is still looking at the tarp over the window.

“There was a fight here,” she says, now to the voices in her earpiece. “Ended recently. Someone tried to cover it up.”

The earpiece vanishes from her ear and clatters to the floor.

Rylie spins, throwing an arm out to shove Peter behind her. Peter isn’t ready and stumbles awkwardly, but Rylie’s already got one hand on the knife up her sleeve and is back to facing the Someone.

He looks like a devil, with dark red body armor and horns silhouetted in the drifting dust, but even with half his face covered he looks caught off guard.

“Who are you?” Peter says over her shoulder. Rylie doesn’t turn to look, but she picks up the light mechanical whirring of the web grenades firing up under his jacket sleeves.

The devil points at you. “You, put that away.” He points at Peter. “You, turn whatever that is off. Who are you and who were you talking to?”

Rylie doesn’t put the knife away, but she does let it lower point-down when she sees the man is unarmed. Or so he’d have it appear, anyway. She’s been fooled before. “Are you Syndicate?”

He frowns. “You shouldn’t know that name.”

“Is that - is that a yes or a no?” Peter says. The web grenades still whir.

“It’s a no. Who were you speaking to.” It isn’t a question.

The tarp over the window blows inward and Natasha Romanov lands with the grace of a dancer between Rylie and the devil, gun drawn but aimed at the ceiling.

The devil doesn’t move. Like he expected it.

“They’re no enemies of yours, Murdock.” Natasha’s voice is low and wintery. “We’re all friends here.”

“Friends is a bit of a strong term.” The devil tilts his head at the window. “Speaking of - tell me those are your people outside.”

Nat doesn’t say anything at first, then draws a second gun. “Nope.”

The devil curses.

“Is there about to be another fight?” Rylie can’t help asking. Now that she’s listening, she can hear quiet footfalls on the other side of the wall. A lot of them. She wants her earpiece but it doesn’t feel safe to pick it up.

“Matt, get these two somewhere safe.” Nat trains one gun on the window and one at the door. “They don’t have combat gear, they can’t be in the middle of this.”

“Neither do you,” Peter says, miffed.

“I am combat gear. Get out of here.”

The devil sighs. “The Syndicate knows where I live,” he starts.

“Figure something out.” Natasha looks Rylie directly in the eye. “Sit this one out. That’s an order.”

Natasha never gives orders. She knows what those words do. She knows the conditioning. That she would use them now puts Rylie well past fear. But she swallows the panic and nods. Her body is already obeying, crossing the dusty floor. She kicks the earpiece under a crate.

“My office,” the devil named Matt says. “They haven’t tracked me there yet.”

“Go.” Natasha flicks the safety off both guns with twin clicks. “Rhodes and Falcon are en route. I’ll get those two later, just–”

The doorway darkens.

The devil curses again and grabs Rylie’s wrist.

—–

“You have options.” The man in front of her hardly seems the same as the horned demon Rylie met in the warehouse. Dark glasses. Cane. Business casual suit. A bland smile playing at the corner of his lips. “You could go to school. You should be in school. There’s truancy laws about that.”

“Lawyer joke! Always a classic.” The man Matt had introduced as Foggy comes in with coffee. He offers Rylie a styrofoam cup. She takes it and doesn’t thank him.

“Tried the school thing,” she says instead. “It didn’t work out.”

Matt Murdock chuckles, a soft breath of a laugh she sees more than she hears. “So you got caught up in new wave vigilateism instead.”

“Better than the alternatives,” she says without thinking.

“We hear that a lot,” Foggy says, sitting at his own desk. “New York, huh.”

Peter stares at his own coffee darkly. Worrying about Natasha. He’s not even subtle about it. His thoughts are painted on his face and he can never hide them. Rylie supposed that’s why his suit has to have a mask. Like Tony. Like Rhodes. Like Steve, to a degree. Natasha doesn’t need a mask. When she’s working, her face might as well be cut from marble. Rylie learned how to do that, too.

Rylie hopes she’s okay. She knows, in the reasonable part of her mind, that Natasha has faced down greater dangers than some gangsters with guns, and anyway, she had backup. Or she should have. Rylie realizes she doesn’t know whether Rhodes and Sam got there. She wishes she could call them.

“So teenage vigilantes,” Foggy says after a too-long silence. “How does that even work?”

Rylie shrugs and looks at Peter. He shrugs too. “I dunno. Same as adult vigilantes, except I still have calculus homework to do.”

“How does being a blind vigilante work?” Rylie asks the man across the desk.

It might be rude of her, but Matt Murdock smiles and gestures with his cane. “It’s not as hard as it sounds.”

Peter sips his coffee and doesn’t say anything.

Sirens howl in the distance. It’s a familiar sound in New York, but Rylie can’t help but worry.

“For instance,” Matt says like there’d been no pause at all, “I know you’re conditioned to combat, and he–” he swings the cane to point at Peter, “–is not. I know the sirens make you nervous. They shouldn’t. It’s an ambulance for a man who had a stroke.”

“Here he goes again with this bullsh… stuff.” Foggy rolls his eyes and takes a long drink of coffee. “God. I would’ve put whiskey in this if I knew what kind of night this was gonna turn out to be.”

Peter and Rylie exchange looks.

Matt tilts his head at the lone window in the office. “Fifth and Ninth…… in a bank. The man’s alive but he’s probably got brain damage.”

“How?” Peter manages.

Matt gives him another soft breath of laughter and a professional lawyer smile.

“He’s listening,” Rylie says. It’s obvious. Peter should have picked up on it. “Heightened senses, right?”

Matt Murdock’s smile goes from professional to downright devilish.

Foggy rolls his eyes again. “Please don’t stroke his ego, it’s the last thing he needs. If you can find an excuse to punch him in the face, please take it. He deserves it.”

There’s a knock at the door.

Peter jumps. No one else does. Foggy looks across the room at Matt. Matt tilts his head ever so slightly, eyebrows pinched together. Then: “It’s fine.”

Foggy gets the door. Clint Barton peers inside, looking very much like he thinks he’s got the wrong address. “Hi, I’m here for the kids?” He spots Rylie and Peter. “Yeah. Those two.”

Matt folds his hands over the top of his cane. “Sorry. We’re not releasing these minors to anyone but Natasha Romanov.”

“I’m a friend of hers.”

The smile is back, playing at the edges of Matt’s lips. “She doesn’t have friends.” His voice takes on a nasty side. “I don’t know you and I don’t trust you.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Clint says. He sounds tired. Rylie wishes Foggy would get out of the doorway so she could see Clint better. “Look, they–”

Rylie stands up, her coffee untouched. “Our ride’s here,” she says to Matt Murdock. “Thanks for the coffee and the condescending advice.”

Peter follows her lead, looking uncertainly between Matt and Clint. “Where’s Nat?” he asks.

Clint doesn’t answer right away and Rylie feels her stomach drop. “She sent me, it’s fine.” Rylie notices he doesn’t say she’s fine. “Less talking, more walking.”

They file out the office door. Matt Murdock doesn’t get up, but he does say, “Kids, now? Really?”

Clint’s glare is wasted. “It’s not that simple.”

“Never is.” Matt’s smile is frozen in place. “And I’m not that kind of lawyer.” He turns his attention towards Rylie, then hesitates. The smile thaws a little. “Well. You know where to find me.”

Foggy shuts the door.


	3. Lost Power

The power goes out.

Rylie blinks in surprise in the sudden dark. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands, counting seconds. The tower doesn’t just lose power, not just like that. Tony has backup generators upon backup generators, arc-reactor powered and every system built with redundancies. Even security. Especially security.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.

Her door opens and Bruce Banner gestures at her. “Not a drill,” he stage whispers. “We’re being sabotaged.”

Rylie grabs the knife from her nightstand. “Intruder?”

“Maybe. We don’t know. FRIDAY is down too. Gonna have to do a manual check.”

Rylie chews her lip and follows Bruce out into the hallway. “Vision?”

“Still in Poland working the Hydra job with Wanda. We gotta do this ourselves.”

Rylie nods. She feels like she should be more nervous, but the familiar weight of the knife in her hand is some twisted comfort. “I’ll take the downstairs lab.”

Bruce hums back, already heading down the hall to Bucky’s room. Then he pauses, turns, and says “Wait, no, we’re meeting up with everyone else–”

The hallway’s already empty.

Bruce swears.

~

“You lost her,” Tony Stark says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “in a house you both live in.”

“She can take care of herself,” Clint says, but looks uncertainly at Natasha. “Right?”

Natasha shrugs, tense like a coiled spring. “We’ll find out. We have to get power back online.”

“I’m on it.” Tony holds out a hand and a suit materializes from somewhere in the dark to form around him. “Make sure the tower’s secure while I do.” And with that, he’s off in a blur of red and gold.

~

Tony doesn’t use the labs down here much anymore. Most of them are just for storing old tech, unused suits, and scrapped or ignored ideas that never came to fruition. Rylie peers around what looks like an early prototype of the Hulkbuster suit, on high alert and knife in hand.

The lab is pitch dark and eerily without the ever-present whirring and hums from a thousand machines in the walls and floors. Every step, no matter how careful, carries through the room.

Well. At least she’ll know if someone’s coming.

Rylie shifts the knife in her palm, growing slick with sweat. Miss Preston’s voice echoes in her head. Never lose your grip. There is no excuse.

She switches hands, wipes her palm on her pants leg.

Something clinks to the floor on the other side of the room.

Rylie’s got her knife back in hand in an instant, zoning in on the noise before she’s quite sure what it was. A single screw rolls around a worktable piled high with junk. Behind it is one of Tony’s older suits - Tin Can, she thinks, the one he’d been developing for stealth missions before he gave up on it. Its empty eye slits stare at her, unfathomably dark even now.

Rylie kind of wishes she’d brought a flashlight.

She watches the screw roll to a clinking halt before risking another step towards the armor. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears. This is ridiculous. She’s not nervous. It’s dark in here - so what? She’s seen darker places. She’s alone - so what? She’s always alone. She adjusts the knife for the hundredth time and edges towards the suit. The faceplate makes a strange silhouette on the wall in the dark.

“You never did know when you were beaten.”

Rylie freezes. She’s not proud of it, later, but she freezes at the ghostly voice drifting in the stale basement air. She’s imagining it. She has to be.

The moment of wild confusion costs her.

Someone hits her across the head from behind, throwing her face-first into the Iron Man suit. She takes out half a worktable on the way down and has an instant to pray that the crash alerts someone nearby, and then she’s in a fight.

A figure in black body armor aims a kick at her, but she springs out of the wreckage and skids around the fallen table, putting it between her and her attacker. She’s lost the knife.

The figure stalks her around the table. “It’s what made you so valuable,” it continues. “You were our top stealth operative and you didn’t know when to quit. You were in high demand back in the day, weren’t you, little Rye?”

The nickname makes her blood go cold. She should look for a weapon, but her eyes are frozen, locked on the figure advancing on her. Just pick something up. Anything. A piece of metal. A table leg. To fight unarmed is to surrender.

The figure throws a punch over the table. Rylie ducks it, stumbles, springs back up before they can get a good shot in. She should yell. She should run.

She doesn’t. In an instant it feels like she’s right back where she started. Speak when spoken to. Obey. Listen when adults are talking. You took another fall on the agility course, did you? Failure. Failure is not tolerated.  _Failure is a shortcoming. Failure is your fault._

Rylie kicks out her leg in a high sweep, hoping to knock the figure down or at least throw them off balance, but she misjudges the distance. The figure sidesteps her and calmly, almost casually, kicks her in the head.

The world explodes sideways in a blurry vision of stars. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Rylie can feel something she lands on cut into her back, but she doesn’t feel the pain. Ignore it. Push it down. Failure is your fault. Pain is your fault.

She rolls and tries to get up but a heavy boot on her back pushes her down again. “Rusty skills. Shameful. It’s why this has to be done. It’s for your own good.”

Tears prickle up and Rylie desperately wishes them away. She can’t show weakness. Not in front of them. Not like this. She gives a halfhearted attempt to throw them off. “Be still,” the figure says. “That’s an order.”

She goes still. She can’t help it. Orders are orders.

“You’re like a sick dog,” the figure continues, and the boot presses down harder, right in the cut, and pain bubbles up past all her blocks. She locks her jaw. She won’t give them the satisfaction. She swore she’d never let them hurt her again.

Natasha Romanov once promised her the same. Now Rylie is going to die two floors below her, unable to throw off a basic shoulder pin. There’s glass in her palms. She hadn’t noticed until now.

“Sick dogs,” the figure goes on, “get put down.” And something pricks at the back of her neck, just sharp enough to feel the pain. A syringe. She’s going to die.

“I hope your new family knows we don’t give refunds,” they say, and the pressure of the boot vanishes.

Rylie bounds back to her feet on pure mechanical instinct, but they’re gone. Her heart is still pounding hard in her chest, but she knows she probably only has a minute. Maybe less. She doesn’t even know what was in the syringe. She didn’t even see it.

The world reels a little and Rylie can’t tell if it’s from the kick in the head or whatever mystery drug is spreading in her blood. She stumbles, grabs at a chunk of metal for balance, stumbles again. The world reels harder.

The elevator isn’t far. She tells herself that and doesn’t think about the fact that her vision is going gray at the edges. She staggers into a workbench and her hands leave bloody smears when she catches herself before she can fall. Right. Glass. Which way was the elevator? She can’t remember. She picks a direction. The roaring in her ears is deafening.

She reaches for the next handhold and catches empty air. She falls.

~

“–can’t have been just a false alarm. Our power’s still out.” Peter paces the common room, gesturing wildly with a flashlight. “Our power doesn’t just go out! And it definitely doesn’t stay out!”

“Turn that off if you can’t handle it properly.” Steve Rogers runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve checked our floors. No signs of intruders or entry. Top floors?”

Thor shrugs, enormous shoulders rolling. “Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as we could tell. I’ve checked from outside. Whatever happened, whoever tried to enter, they did not do so from the upper floors.”

Natasha nods. “What he said.”

Bucky exits the elevator, eyebrows pulled tight. “No sign of anyone. Who’s checking the basements?”

“Barton and Banner, why?”

“Then where the hell is Rylie?”

~

Bruce doesn’t exactly like laboratories. It surprises a lot of people, but seven Ph.D.s and a horrifying gamma radiation mishap would burn anyone out on them. In the back of his mind, Hulk wordlessly voices disapproval. Bruce pushes him away. They have more important things to do.

~

Clint Barton doesn’t exactly like laboratories. It’s nothing personal. He just thinks they’re boring. He takes the vent shafts instead. He’s an archer - air tells him things.

He pauses at a junction and waits to see what the air will say. Little uneven puffs, so faint he only feels them because he’s trying to, come from the right. He goes right.

The air brings vibration next. Scrapes and scuffles. Boots on grit, skin on metal. Not a struggle, he’s pretty sure, but not a good sound to feel. He wishes he’d charged the hearing aid batteries. He’s forgotten way too many times and the other Avengers are bound to catch on soon that he’s doing most of his jobs deaf.

The scuffles get weaker, but Barton’s sure he’s close. He’s also pretty sure it’s not an upset pigeon like last time.

The scuffles stop, abruptly, and there’s the smallest hint of vibration like something falling, or someone speaking. Now he’s really worried.

He follows the trail.

~

Bruce Banner hears the door slam. It’s as close as he gets to seeing the intruder. He’d wonder, later, what he would have done if he’d caught them - but in the moment he just wonders if it’s Rylie and runs.

The room is empty by the time he gets there. Or he thinks it is. He scans the area quickly, assessing, looking, and he almost misses the bloody smears on the worktable.

Bruce crosses the room in two strides and that’s when he sees her.

Rylie lays motionless, half under the worktable, arm twisted at an unnatural angle underneath her. Bruce can’t see her face, but he can see the veins turning grey in her wrist and feels something twist heavy and sickening in his gut. Half on autopilot, he checks her pulse.

The ceiling thumps and before Bruce can react, Clint Barton is dangling from a ventilation hole. “What happened?” he says, loud enough that Bruce is fairly sure he doesn’t have the hearing aids in, so he doesn’t answer. He finds a pulse and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Rylie. Can you look at me?” he says, gentle as he can, voice shaking with something he can’t identify. He’d think it was rage if he couldn’t feel the Hulk in the back of his mind, uncharacteristically quiet and somber.

Rylie doesn’t move. The grey veins pulse sluggishly under his fingertips. It’s slow. Way too slow.

Barton finally makes it to the floor and takes in the situation for a split second. Then: “I’m going to find who did this.”

And he’s gone.

Bruce takes a shuddering breath and wishes Barton hadn’t left. He can’t do this alone. How long has he been crouched here? It can’t have been more than thirty seconds. It feels a lot longer.

Shut up. Shut up. He can’t freak out now. Rylie’s hands are bleeding, but as he goes to check them, he sees the needle prick in her neck.

Bruce says a word he wouldn’t say if Rylie could hear him, and gathers her into his trembling hands. He shouldn’t have let her go off by herself. He should’ve kept a closer eye on her. This is his doing. This is his fault.

Barton reappears in the doorway as Bruce gets to his feet, unsteady and not nearly strong enough to handle Rylie’s dead weight. He’s forgotten how much muscle her tiny form packs.

“Barton, take her,” he says. His voice comes out harsh and angry. He doesn’t know why.

Barton does and doesn’t question it. “They got out from the garage,” he says. “Trail ends there.”

Bruce shakes his head like a dog and makes for the elevator. He can’t think about that. About an attacker. If he thinks about Rylie alone down here, bleeding and fighting alone, he’ll lose it. She’s supposed to be safe here. They were supposed to keep her safe.

Bruce spares a glance at her and regrets it immediately. Her hands still bleed, dripping syrupy blood onto the floor. He sees glass.

The tower shudders and the lights finally, blessedly come back on. Bruce pounds the elevator button and the machinery whirs to life. He goes for the intercom next.

“We got Rylie. Prep the med bay.” He doesn’t care who’s listening. He hopes they all are.

The doors slide open far too slowly.

“I’m headed back,” Tony Stark’s voice comes crackling over the speakers. “What happened?”

Bruce can’t bring himself to answer. Hulk is finally waking up in the depths of his head and Bruce is turning his attention to keeping him quiet.

“Banner, talk to me.” Stark’s voice is taking that edge again, the snappish one he gets when he’s afraid. People mistake it for anger a lot. Bruce knows better. He knows what anger sounds like. It sounds like the roaring in his ears right now.

A different voice comes on the speakers as the elevator rises. Natasha Romanov. “Bruce, say something. We’re all heading up to med bay but you have to tell us what to expect.”

Bruce can’t get the words out. He motions at Clint. “Tell them,” he grinds out.

Barton blinks and Bruce realizes he hasn’t heard the intercom, but the man has more intuition than a psychics convention and cottons on. “Intruder escaped through the garage,” he says to the box on the wall. “Rylie’s down.” He finally seems to realize he’s holding her and looks her over as well as he’s able. “Uhhh. Bleeding from the hands…” He looks helplessly at Bruce.

Bruce reaches out and gestures at the needle prick on the girl’s neck.

The lines on Barton’s face grow darker. “Needle mark on her neck. No idea what they drugged her with.”

The elevator doors finally open and the heavenly white of med bay greets Bruce. Natasha Romanov is there, prepping a bed and an IV drip. Everyone else is there too, standing around looking worried.

“What happened?” Peter Parker demands. He looks almost on the verge of tears.

Bruce ignores him and hauls over a crash cart. Just in case, he tells himself.

“Barton, what are we looking at?” Nat asks, and Barton launches into a monologue that Bruce doesn’t hear through the roaring in his ears. This is his fault. If he’d just kept her close by like he was supposed to, she wouldn’t be limp in Clint’s arms.

He swallows the thought and works.

~

Rylie dreams about the agility course.

The wall was her biggest enemy. The Counselors watch impassive as she tries again and again to scale the thing, but the rope slips through her palms every time. The other kids leap past her, scaling the monolith like gravity doesn’t apply to them. Rylie tries again and the rope burns through her hands as she slides down yet again.

The Counselors murmur in disapproval. The sound makes her stomach hurt. Their displeasure never heralds anything good.

She tries again, grabbing the rope and planting her feet against the wall. Her shoes slip and the rope  _burns burns burns_  as she falls. Her hands sting and throb but she knows she can’t quit. She’ll be here for hours. She’s already been here for hours. How many meals has she missed?

A boy just younger than her side-eyes her at the foot of the wall. He hesitates, the rope in his own hands slack. “Put the weight on your heels and you’ll get better traction,” he mumbles before launching himself up the wall, scaling like a monkey.

Rylie feels almost nauseous. He’ll get in deep trouble if the Counselors heard him. She knows they’re not allowed to help each other. He knows that, too. He’ll get privileges revoked. He’ll have to drink his meals for days. He’ll get the mattress and blankets taken away. He’ll lose his rec time. Why would he help her?

She realizes she never learned that boy’s name and it makes her sad.

Rylie seized the rope even as her hands scream in agony. She plants her heels firmly on the wall and tries again. Her hands burn so much.

The Counselors talk amongst themselves, clipboards in hand. She can hear them even past the soundproof glass separating the observation area from the course.

“Did the security tapes turn up anything?”

“They looped the footage without us knowing.”

“So that’s a no.”

“How’d they knock out the power?”

“EMP pulse. Luckily we have backups of everything, including FRIDAY, but they clearly knew what they were doing.”

“Any ID on the attacker yet?”

“We’ve been canvassing the neighborhoods and got a few likely hits. Bodega owner on 12th says he saw someone in what looked like body armor fleeing from our direction. Facial recognition pings her as Michelle Preston. She’s tied to the Center.”

“So Rylie _was_  the target.”

“Looks that way. …Banner, you need to leave the room?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“All right. All right. How’s her vitals?”

Rylie’s halfway up the wall and her hands hurt.

“Heart rate and blood pressure look good. Still don’t know what was in the cocktail they gave her, but the activated charcoal seems to be doing its job anyway.”

“Is she clenching her fists?”

“…..looks that way. She might be coming out of it a little. Rylie? You waking up yet?”

The top of the wall is almost in reach. Her hands sting.

“She’s going to reopen the cuts on her hands if she keeps doing that–”

“I have got it.” A new voice. Hands on her own, prying her fingers apart. “Rylie. Let go. Doesn’t that hurt?”

Does it? She doesn’t know. Does she? The wall; she remembers this. She never did make it to the top. The boy who gave her quiet advice was punished for weeks afterward. She was put through desensitization after that. She hasn’t felt pain properly since. Pain cannot rule you, the Counselors said. Rule your pain. Master it and we’ll try again.  _This is to help you. Since you can’t seem to stop disappointing us._

This isn’t real. This already happened.

She wakes up all at once in a rush of sensation. The bright lights of med bay make her eyes sting. Her hands still hurt. Someone’s hovering over her, a dark silhouette against the bright fluorescents, and it finally registers that they’re talking to her.

“–ber that? Hey. Hey. Look at me. You with us? Rylie. Rylie. It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay. Look at me. We’re here. It’s okay.”

The voice clicks. Wanda Maximoff. It strikes her as strange. She and Wanda don’t talk much. But Wanda was raised to be a weapon, too. Maybe she feels a kinship with Rylie.

“Wanda?” Rylie manages around the grit in her dry mouth.

“You got it,” Wanda says in her thickly accented English. “You will feel better. You were poisoned. Do you remember?”

A figure in body armor. A voice that made her blood go cold. A kick to the head. A needle prick. Glass in her palms and then darkness.

“Kinda.” Rylie flexes her fingers again and the motion makes them twinge. Now that she’s paying attention she can feel the thick layers of gauze stiffening her movements.

The sharp lines of Wanda’s face soften. “Good. Good. The poison is working its way out of your system. You’ll be fine. You can go back to sleep, if you want.”

“Okay.” She does.

~

It’s a week later and Bruce still won’t look at her without a raw sort of pain in his face. Rylie wonders if he’s disappointed in her. They all should be. Natasha’s probably told them about the Center - about how Rylie has been trained for combat for years. And now she can’t even take a single attacker armed with nothing but a syringe and body armor.

Rylie tells herself they’re not disappointed. She remembers taking a hit on a mission last month and being so afraid of retribution that she almost threw up in the Quinjet on the way home. Clint had told her then that they would never, ever be disappointed in her.

“We don’t keep you around for your battlefield talents,” he’d said, so quiet that only Rylie could hear over the whine of the engines. “You’re never going to be a disappointment. We won’t punish you for mistakes. Not ever.”

Rylie hopes he never knows how much she clings to those words sometimes.

She pads quietly into the kitchen. It’s late and Natasha says she should still be resting, but she’s starving and doesn’t want to wait for someone to bring her dinner in med bay.

Then she hears them.

“–othing on Preston yet?” Steve Rogers says.

“She’s in the wind.” That’s Natasha, sounding weary. “No one else from the Center’s turned up, either.”

“Either they’re running a tight operation or they’ve given up.” Steve sounds just as tired.

“They don’t just give up. Not people like this.”

Silence falls. Rylie stays frozen around the corner.

“I can’t believe this happened,” Steve finally says, so quiet Rylie can hardly hear. “In the tower. Right under our noses.”

“I know,” says Nat.

“She’s supposed to be safe here. We told her she’d be safe. She’s never going to trust us again. If she ever did to begin with.”

“I know,” says Nat again.

“We can’t let this happen again.”

“We won’t. Tony’s been up for a week in the labs, trying to make everything EMP-resistant so they can’t take out the power the same way.”

“You really think that’ll stop them?” Steve asks, sharp and angry.

“Yes,” says Natasha placidly. “But the damage is already done. At least she’s alive.”

Rylie doesn’t move. Her bandaged hands hurt and she realizes she’s balled them into fists. She lets go.

“Do you think she’s ever going to feel safe here again?” Steve finally asks.

A long silence goes by. Then:

“Steve, kids trained at places like… that… they don’t  _trust._  They never learned how. Or else they forgot. Had it beaten out of them. They take orders, but they don’t trust. They’re always on guard. That never goes away.”

Rylie’s stomach twists painfully and she suddenly isn’t hungry anymore.

“It’s not just that, either,” Nat goes on. “It’s… They aren’t just trained for combat. They’re assassins, mercenaries, spies… they’re taught to do it all. Their identities get wiped just clean enough to rewrite. They don’t feel things the same. They don’t hear things the same.”

“She doesn’t feel pain,” Steve murmurs. “Not enough, anyway.”

“It’s just the tip of the horrifying iceberg,” Natasha says with a humorless chuckle. “The Center was like… a new and improved Red Room. They tried to do what the Soviets did but better. So they let these kids  _feel._  They… I read that they let each kid have a, some sort of stuffed animal. And they’d take it away if the kid failed a task. They took natural childhood attachment issues and  _weaponized_  them.”

“That’s.” Steve seems to struggle for words for a moment. “Sick,” he finally decides.

“Kids raised like that don’t turn out right,” Natasha says in a low voice. “They’re dangerous, but more than that, they don’t trust. They know that they can’t.”

They don’t think she trusts them. Does she? Rylie takes careful stock of her thoughts and tries to dig the emotions out of them. If someone were aiming a gun at her and Steve Rogers stood behind them, she thinks, would she go for the gun? Or would she believe that Steve would stop the attacker before they would shoot?

A week ago she would have trusted. Now she’s not so sure.

And they know.

And that means they don’t trust her either.

Rylie slips quietly away down the hall. Behind her, Natasha’s voice drifts from the kitchen. “Give her time. Time fixes more than we think it does. Just remember that kids who were raised like that… they lose themselves.”

Rylie disappears back into med bay before she can hear the rest.

Natasha Romanov takes a long sip of coffee before meeting Steve Rogers’s eyes again. “That’s why we’re so lucky she has anything left.”


End file.
